


We're like noughts and crosses

by emptygoldss



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: M/M, badboy!Michael, i guess, in which im angsty and i can't write but this was produced anyway lmao, jock!calum
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-14
Updated: 2015-09-14
Packaged: 2018-04-20 19:59:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4800383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emptygoldss/pseuds/emptygoldss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>it’s like Michael’s made of glass and Calum turns him to sand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We're like noughts and crosses

It starts the day Calum comes and sits beside him.

And Michael is confused. Because Michael is the kid in the leather jacket even when it’s 50 degrees out and who spends most of his time smoking in places he shouldn’t be rather than in class.

Calum isn’t, at all. Calum is the kid who everyone likes and already has his football scholarship under his belt and is probably too nice to people who don’t deserve it.

People like Michael.

But Michael doesn’t walk away. Deep down he’s too polite too, and even deeper, the company is nice. He pretends like he doesn’t even notice Calum, and Calum doesn’t seem to mind and continues to sit beside him. 

Michael says something first.

“Do you want a smoke?”

Calum shakes his head. Of course he actually cares enough to look after himself. 

Michael isn’t sure how to describe it. It’s like he seems to see Calum everywhere, in class, in the hallway, walking in and out of school. It scares him more when he finally admits to himself that maybe it’s not coincidence and maybe he’s looking for him.

He tries to ignore that.

It doesn’t stop him asking Calum why he keeps sitting with him.

“You just seem…sad”

He can see the hesitation on the boys face when he sees it, and he refuses to meet Michael’s eyes. He doesn’t say anything else, leaving Michael unable to say anything else because no one has ever said he seemed sad. They told him to stop being so angry at the world because he had no reason (he had plenty reason, people like those were part of it) they told him he was reckless, that between the cigarettes, and the drugs and the drinking he was killing himself.

They were right. He was angry. He was reckless. Calum was right. He was sad.

The first time he kisses Calum, inside he’s hesitant, outside he grabs him and presses his lips against his, pressing the boy against the support of the bleachers. Michael wants to be desperate and quick but the moment Calum kisses him back, bringing his fingers up to Michael’s face, tracing them along his jaw, it’s like Michael’s made of glass and Calum turns him to sand. 

Nothing is said.

It happens again. And again. 

And Calum is starting to get too attached, Michael can tell in the way Calum’s lips ghost over his when Michael pulls away and it takes a second for him to open his eyes, only to watch as Michael decides he regrets it and walks away. Michael is too, because every time he does walk away he wants to run back and press Calum against the support of the bleachers again and kiss him for longer this time, and take his time, and run his hands through his curls and trace patterns on his warm skin like he was in some kind of fucking movie.

Michael won’t tell him though, and he starts to hate himself even more because he feels like he’s leading Calum on. He pulls away quicker between kisses. He skips their little meet ups behind the bleachers, and at the time he thinks it’s okay because Calum won’t say anything. When the guilt catches up with him, he stops going to school all together.

He stays in his room and tries not to think about the golden boy with rough curls and calloused fingers, who makes Michael feel something even if it’s just when his fingers run over his when Michael’s nails dig into his hipbones. It’s hard.

It’s impossible when Calum turns up on the other side of his front door, begging to be let in.

And maybe it’s because everyone Michael’s ever been close to has left him without hesitation and Calum is banging on his door because he won’t leave, no matter how many times Michael keeps trying to get him too that makes Michael break down in tears.

 _This_ is like a fucking movie.

Calum’s standing in the rain and Michael can see his sillouette through the stained glass of the door. It takes a few minutes but Michael knows Calum has an important game in a few days and he doesn’t want him to get ill all because Michael is sad and pathetic and Calum cares more about him that anyone else ever has.

So he opens the door.

Calum steps in out of the rain, t-shirt sticking to him and droplets hanging from the ends of his hair and Michael forgets that he’s crying because he wonders if Calum really is made of gold.

Calum feels his heart break for the very first time.

Not because Michael says something, because Michael stands in front of him in tears that he can’t stop, even as he tries to wipe them away with the sleeves of the jumper three sizes to big for him.

He looks small. Small and broken. 

Neither of them can stop the tears and Calum wants to ask why he’s crying, because he doesn’t know he’s the only person who stayed but instead he sits on the floor across from him and doesn’t say anything. He just wants to be there. And he wants Michael to know that.

And Michael wants to believe it so desperately but there’s a voice at the back of his head that tells him the look in Calum’s eyes isn’t sympathy, tells him Calum is there because he wants to know Michael’s secrets not so he can help, so he can laugh at him, tells him to carry on being bitter and angry.

And scared.

Calum hesitates, he can almost see the thought process going through Michael’s head but he reaches forward and places his hand over Michael’s. He feels him freeze, like whatever he was thinking just disappeared, so he laces his fingers through Michael’s and squeezes.

Michael looks up at Calum, and it’s the first time Michael’s really looked at him, it’s like he see’s everything under the curls and the bright eyes, like he sees the pure love that seems to radiate off Calum no matter where he is, no matter who he’s sat in front off.

He leans forward, so he’s on his knees and presses his lips against Calum’s.

This time it isn’t rushed and desperate, it’s hesitant, it’s slow and his fingers graze Calum’s neck before coming to rest on his shoulder as he pulls away, their faces only inches apart, Michael’s lips still parted as he looks at Calum with wide eyes.

So Calum peppers kisses on his lips, moving along to his jaw, and his nose, and forehead and finally along where his tears fell.

And Michael feels loved.

_So fucking loved._

They sit there on Michael’s floor in the dark, the shadows of raindrops on the window reflecting onto the floor and their faces as they linger close to one another. Calum keeps giving him small kisses and Michael doesn’t want to move and he doesn’t want to open his eyes, because he’s scared it’ll be like waking up from a dream.

Calum is still there when they open, because he isn’t leaving.

Michael is slowly starting to like the idea of that.

That night Michael sleeps under the covers and at first Calum insists he sleeps on top of them because he gets too warm in the night, until Michael starts to feel him shiver and pulls the duvet over the both of them, enjoying the way Calum’s curls are still damp against the back of his neck but his arms around his waist keeps him warm.

It’s perfect.

It’s perfect the night after that. And that. And that.

Michael hopes it’ll last, he tells himself it will, but he see’s the posters around school for prom, he sees the sun starting to rise earlier and he stops wearing his leather jacket to school because it’s too warm.

It’s summer and Michael starts to realize that means it’s the end.

Because Calum is the golden boy, he has bigger and better things, he has an entire world to travel, and Michael simply isn’t. Michael tells himself he’s a time filler, he’s temporary.

Calum feels him pulling away, but he knows not to pry. He’s patient and tries to wait it out, he hopes maybe Michael’s just having a bad time and he tries to help and make sure Michael knows he’s there but it’s so fucking hard when Michael doesn’t even look him in the eye.

Patience turns into anger. Because Calum is trying to fucking hard and Michael isn’t even attempting. Michael isn’t returning his calls and he’s wandering the streets at night because his bed feels empty without Calum, because his house feels to big and never ending and he misses the way Calum would wrap his arms around him and it was just them. There was nothing else. He was safe.

He finds a new place to smoke. There’s a spot away from school CCTV near the bike shed where Michael starts to spend most of his days. His bad habits get worse and he drinks to forget the way Calum’s eyes would crinkle when he smiles, and the way his breath got caught in the back of his throat when he laughed and to be comfortable with the fact he’s stuck.

Calum watches from a distance. He feels his heart break for the second time.

One day there’s a group of kids at the bike shed and Michael doesn’t want to socialize so he wanders around and finds himself back at the field. He’s sat back on that old bench watching Calum before he can even realize what he’s doing.

He thinks Calum doesn’t notice at first, and he thinks he’s proved himself right, Calum’s forgotten about him, he’s moved on from what ever they had, Michael’s damaged product, he’s disposable and he’s known that all along.

Until he feels a set of fingers intertwine with his.

Calum isn’t looking at him but their knees are touching.

“I told you I wouldn’t leave”

Michael wants to cry again, but there is an entire football team pretending to be invested in a game in front of him so he just squeezes Calum’s hand, and the boys laugh gets stuck at the back of his throat again as he holds back tears before grabbing Michael and kissing him.

Michael stops pretending to care the way the team in front of him stops pretending to play football. He gives up and he surrenders, and it feels _so good_.

That night they lie in his bed and Calum is mesmerized by the way the street lights outside Michael’s illuminate the way his eyes sparkle and the way Michael’s entire body vibrates when he laughs.

Michael loves the way Calum’s lips trace the freckles on his collarbones, the way that no matter where Calum kisses him their fingers stay intertwined.

And he loves the way Calum tells him that he doesn’t care what people think, and how he wants to hold his hand and tell everyone how amazing and beautiful his boyfriend is (“I can call you that right?”) and how he sounds angry that someone would ever disagree on that fact, and how he ends the rant with a kiss on the last freckle and a barely audible _“If you’re okay with that, I mean”_

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
